BELLEVUE, Wash. & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Inipharm, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing therapies for liver and related diseases, today announced that it will be presenting data on the anti-fibrotic effects of one of its small-molecule inhibitors of HSD17B13 in a primary human cell “3D liver-on-a-chip” model of NASH at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases’ (AASLD) The Liver Meeting®, taking place virtually November 12-15, 2021.

“HSD17B13 is a target of great interest for a range of severe liver disorders, including NASH, given recent findings that certain variants of the gene are strongly associated with liver protection in these diseases,” said Heather Hsu, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Inipharm. “In these experiments, our HSD17B13 inhibitor INI-678 showed reduction in key markers of fibrosis in a human liver cell-based 3D liver-on-a-chip model, a model which we believe is well-suited to reflect human liver physiology with respect to HSD17B13.”

Abstract Title: Potent and selective small molecule HSD17B13 inhibitor INI-678 improves fibrotic markers in NASH liver-on-a-chip

Publication Number: 215

Session: Oral Parallel 33: Experimental Advances in NAFLD

Session Broadcast Date and Time: Monday, November 15, 2021, 3:00 PM

Key Findings:

• INI-678 treatment decreased fibrosis markers aSMA (35.4±7.5%, p<0.0001) and collagen type 1 (42.5±6.4 %, p<0.0001) compared to control in a liver-on-a-chip system containing Kupffer cells, stellate cells, and hepatocytes treated with high fat media.
• INI-678 inhibits HSD17B13-catalyzed oxidation of multiple substrates with low nM potency.
• INI-678 does not inhibit the other members of the HSD17B family tested nor enzymes and receptors in an off-target panel.

About Inipharm

Inipharm is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing therapies for severe liver diseases. Inipharm’s lead programs are focused on the highly validated genetic target, HSD17B13. There is extensive, consistent evidence that genetic variants in expression of HSD17B13 protein are associated with significantly lower rates and severity of multiple liver diseases. Inipharm is advancing a pipeline of small-molecule therapies that target the activity of this protein.

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